Hackaday links: March 6, 2011

[Dan] sent us a link to this Honda U3-X personal transport device. It’s kind of like a Segway that can move in any direction but our head already hurts from the thought of going over backward on one of these.

How light bulb filaments were developed

Now that incandescent light bulbs are about to be outlawed here in the US, we thought you might enjoy learning how the filaments were developed. This another video by [Bill Hammack], the engineer guy, and we’re big fans of his work.

Wooden stove reflow

Who needs a PID controlled skillet when you can reflow on this wooden stove? Well maybe not reflow, this is more of a salvage operation.

I did not know about this incandescent light law thing. Wouldn’t that be stupid to do if everyone used CCFLs? They are great to use for like one spot in your house but the big 1. Mercury I think is worse then the pollution given off by the electricity by incandescent lights. 2. Some lamps don’t work with CCFLs because of the inverter. Especially the adjustable ones.

Not to mention that CCFL light bulbs aren’t recommended for enclosed spaces and humid areas such as the bathroom, last I checked.

Plus, the WORST thing I’ve ever seen an incandescent bulb do is break, or pop loudly when it blows out. I had a house that regularly made CCFL bulbs BLOW UP! Literally, the glass would shatter unexpectedly.

A few months ago, in a different home, I smelled electrical smoke, but couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Thankfully, I turned off the light when leaving the room. When I returned, the bulb made a horrid buzzing noise and was making all the lights in the house flicker. Sure enough, after turning off the light and checking it, there was a spot melted through the plastic on the side.

How are we going to brood our chickens, without warming lights. The government banned heating pads that give heat. Now the wimpy-ass things shut off after just 2 hours. It’s early spring, seeds to sprout under controlled conditions, heat etc.
Yet they can’t ban uninsulated hot water pipes, or globe lights outdoors.
Wack-a-Mole data entry. Elephant keys to go with the elephant-toilet, look it up. Definitely over the wimpy water toilet limit. Looks like a 2 inch water line and 6 inch sewer line.

@ echodelta
In Europe, most lightbulbs are already illegal. Of course, it’s perfectly fine to sell heatballs, which merely produce light as a byproduct, and which are produced with a standard E27 socket.

That actually does suck about the 100 Watt bulbs, I have yet to see a CFL last more that a few hundred hours, wether they be the cheap $1 ones or the exspensive $5-10 ones. There’s always one part of the inverter circuit that goes AWOL, and usually in a fantastic fashion. I have seen some explode (a small pop really), briefly catch fire, and blow puffs of white smoke. While other just fail to work altogether. Not to mention that the vast majority of them get just as hot as an equiveleant incandescent. Also, they are big and don’t fit in most fixtures, have inferior light, take forever to light fully, they don’t dim very well or at all (depending on the type you get), not to mention the environmental disadvatages, they usually contain lead, always contain mercury, and they are damned near hard to recycle. Most will end up in land fills where the lead and mercury will be allowed to escape and leak into the environment. They cannot be put in trash bins, they are hazardous material and need to be treated as such, but people won’t do that.

In addition, I myself use 100 watt bulbs extensivly in my haunted attractions because they are dimmable and cheap (they also look better that a CFL when your trying to do a vintage theme). I hope they will come up with a way to license certain people so they can buy these types of bubls for these special cases.